Meet the Brazilian Woman Who Posted a Topless Photo and Launched a Movement

When the 28-year-old Brazilian journalist Nana Queiroz read a Brazilian research institute's report that 65 percent of Brazilians agreed that "women who wear clothes that show off their body deserve to be attacked," she was furious. She went on Facebook and posted an anti-rape petition along with a semi-nude picture of herself with the words "Não Mereço Ser Estuprada" — "I don't deserve to be raped" — written on her forearm. Though that number was later changed to 26 percent when researchers said they'd miscalculated, Queiroz points out that that's still a quarter of the country. Her picture went viral, and thousands of women and men in Brazil and beyond posted their own photos. The campaign got the attention of the government, and Queiroz even met with the Brazilian president. She spoke with Cosmopolitan.com about sexism and feminism in Brazil.

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What prompted you to post the photo?

There was research here released by IPEA, a government institution, that said that many Brazilians, including men and women, believe that if women behaved better there would be less rape. I felt this was outrageous. If someone was raped, the one to blame is only the rapist, not the victim. Women should use their bodies for whatever they want. If they want to be seductive, they should be. If they want to be sexy, they should be. If they want to be pure heavenly angels, they should be. Whatever a woman chooses should be respected.

In Brazilian culture there's a view that there's a certain kind of woman you marry and a certain kind of woman you have sex with. I was so pissed off by this research. I invited six friends to create an artistic protest on our Facebooks. I said, "Everybody should show some part of your body and say, 'I don't deserve to be attacked.'" I put up an event at 7 p.m. on a Thursday and I said, "The deal is we all post our pictures tomorrow at the same time all together." My friends invited some friends and they invited some friends and suddenly we had this huge movement with 45,000 people. On the day of the publication of the pictures, there were so many men and women posting pictures saying nobody deserves to be raped.

Brazil has this image that women are really sexual and liberated. But the thing is, here in Brazil, if you want to show your body and be sexy, you have to pay the price. And the price is being mistreated by men. Men feel free to grab your ass in public spaces, to grab your boobs, to flirt in a very aggressive way in the streets. You're going to work, and a man will just stop you in the street and say, "Oh, you are hot, I want to eat you." I felt like this movement was a channel for [women] to say, "This is over. I don't accept it any longer."

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The Internet knows you as the Brazilian woman who posed topless against sexual assault. But who are you really?

I live in Brasília. I'm 28, and I'm recently married to another journalist, a BBC correspondent. I'm the oldest of six siblings. My parents are still married today. I was born in a poor neighborhood in São Paulo and studied in public schools. My family was really poor when I was little, though that changed when I was 15 or 16. My father is the typical self-made man. He was born into a family that faced hunger and now is the director of sales of a company.

I was born a feminist. When I was 8, I had a huge fight with my dad. He told me I should start washing dishes to help my mom out. I said I would only do that if he helped as well. He said, "I work all day," and I said, "Well, I study all day!" We fought about it. In the end, my father had to make a list sharing all the house responsibilities equally between girls and boys.

I was born with this sense of equality between men and women. I don't know where it came from because my parents are both conservative. When the [anti-rape] movement started, my father was so against it. He said that he was embarrassed, that people from work would see it. Then a few days later he saw all these women sharing their stories of rape and assault, and he hugged me and told me he was proud of me and that I should keep working to change conservative people's hearts — because I changed his heart.

What do you hope to accomplish beyond the social media blitz?

I met the president [of Brazil], and we gathered a team of amazing people who are developing a document to deliver to her with tips for how we think rape should be approached in schools. We think education is the way to solve the problem. Seventy percent of rape victims who file charges in Brazil are raped before they are adults. We wanted children to hear about rape in school, through a very simple approach, with theater or stories or some way children can understand. Like there is this little boy and he has this beautiful body and he knows when people touch here it is OK but when they touch here it is not OK. And when they're teenagers, speak to them in an adult way, because they are ready to hear about it. A lot of girls report being raped right around the time their bodies change — that's when people start abusing them. So it's important that girls from the age of 11, when some start menstruating, should have heard about sexual assault in a very open way. I participated in discussions in the Senate and the Congress, and we are bringing up the idea that we believe the way is not just to imprison everyone but to work on education and prevention.

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What are the biggest challenges facing women in Brazil?

Of course there is the challenge that everyone has: abortion. Abortion is not allowed. It's only legal in some situations: If you are raped, if you are in risk of your life, or if your fetus has no brain. The rest is not allowed. And women don't participate in politics as much as men. They don't have the same salaries, and they aren't in as many leadership roles.

But I believe the biggest of all challenges is the right of women to use their bodies how they want. Here, we value beauty, and beauty requires being a "10," as in the most beautiful. You have to be in the sun, your skin has to look darker and brighter, so for you to do that you have to be in a very small bikini at the beach for hours, but men are going to treat you like shit. They are going to say whatever they want, and they are going to grab you. Women in Brazil just got used to this treatment. Our bodies are showing because it's a hot country — we want to wear short skirts and short shorts and tank tops. We feel as hot as men, and men don't even wear shirts! But if we show our bodies, we are judged and treated in horrible ways.

There was a wave in Brazil where men were going inside the crowded subway and putting their penises on women's butts for sexual pleasure. Through the clothes — just rubbing — and worse, they were taking pictures of the butts they were rubbing and putting them up on the Internet and sharing stories of how they approached these girls. It was horrible.

My body almost naked in that picture is a political statement, not a sexual statement. My body is mine. I am the one who says what it means — not men, not society. And if I say my body isn't a sexual invitation, then it isn't. I don't know if you saw that Adidas shirt [reading "I heart Brazil," with the heart resembling a woman's butt in a thong]. Brazilians were outraged by it.

Right now we're discussing the national plan for education, which will dictate the curriculum for schools in the next 10 years. We are really fighting for it to include the discussion of gender in schools and gender identity. That would include sexism, women, and gay rights. But the religious people are fighting strongly against it. They don't want a gender component to be included, because they don't want gays to have rights. Some of them don't want women to have rights as well, because some stupid part of the Bible says women should obey men. The religious groups are big and powerful. Brazilians are voting for these conservatives. They are not the majority, but they are big enough to do a lot of damage.

Another thing is that women in Brazil are not protected against crimes on the Internet. We had this wave of men who put sex videos of girls who broke up with them online — revenge porn. Here, girls have been committing suicide after it. We had two or three cases of that. A girl called Fran, she was a big symbol of this — she had to change her name, her school, her hair, and get a new life because of revenge porn. If someone reposts a sex video, that means they saw it. They should be punished. I don't believe in imprisoning these people, but they should pay reparations to the victim. You're going to give her money to get a new life and a new home so she can go somewhere else.

What are the next steps in your campaign?

It's a happy coincidence that this movement happened in an election year. I think we forced our candidates to talk about sexual assault and women's rights. Our main goal is to keep pressuring for a plan of national education, and even though it seems like a lost cause, we will keep pushing.

What should Cosmopolitan.com readers know about Brazilian women?

You speak to a public that is coming to the World Cup. Please send them the note that Brazilian women are amazing, but they are not sexual objects. They are women who are oppressed and are not willing to accept any sexual oppression during the World Cup. We believe that all these nice people who are coming are willing to help us with this fight and will do so by respecting women they see. Never mind what they are wearing. Respect them. Treat them with the dignity they deserve.